White House staffer tells Oversight Committee of 'grave' concerns with security clearances
BY MORGAN CHALFANT - 04/01/19 10:14 AM EDT
House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) on Monday announced plans to subpoena a former White House official as part of an investigation into the Trump administration’s security clearance process, and released a memo detailing security concerns raised by a whistleblower working at the White House.
In a letter to White House counsel Pat Cipollone, Cummings accused the White House of “obstructing” his committee’s ongoing probe and said the committee will vote Tuesday to authorize a subpoena for Carl Kline, the White House’s former personnel security director who served there for the first two years of President Trump’s administration, to appear for a transcribed interview before the committee.
The letter to Cipollone cites an interview with a whistleblower and career official in the White House, Tricia Newbold, who he says came forward to the committee to discuss “the grave security risks she has been witnesses first-hand over the past two years.”
According to a 10-page memo released by Cummings on Monday, Newbold told committee staff that she and other career officials denied clearance applications for multiple security clearances that were later overturned by senior officials in order to allow those individuals to access classified material.
She also said she began keeping a list last year of White House employees’ denials that were overturned, and that that list names 25 officials, including two current senior White House officials who are not named in the memo.
“In light of the grave reports from this whistleblower — and the ongoing refusal of the White House to provide the information we need to conduct our investigation — the Committee now plans to proceed with compulsory process and begin authorizing subpoenas, starting at tomorrow’s business meeting,” Cummings wrote in his letter to Cipollone.
He also wrote that “committee staff have spoken with other whistleblowers who corroborated Ms. Newbold’s account, but they were too afraid about the risk to their careers to come forward publicly.”
Cummings asked the White House to produce a more tailored set of documents laid out in his initial request, including the list of 25 officials Newbold said she created.
He also requested various security clearance-related documents for current and former officials, including national security adviser John Bolton, former national security adviser Michael Flynn, Trump son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner, former staff secretary Rob Porter and Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump.
Additionally, Cummings signaled that the committee would look to subpoena other White House officials in the personnel security office after Kline if the White House does not make them available for interviews. Cummings asked the White House for a response by Friday as to whether it would make other witnesses available to interview voluntarily.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Cummings first announced the investigation into the White House security clearance process in late January, requesting a trove of documents from the administration as well as transcribed interviews with officials working in the White House personnel security office.
The White House counsel’s office has been engaging with the committee but, according to Cummings, has not produced any of the documents or made witnesses available for interviews.
In a letter to Cummings sent in early March, Cipollone argued that the “decision to grant or deny a security clearance is a discretionary function that belongs exclusively to the Executive Branch” and that the committee was making “unprecedented and extraordinarily intrusive demands” outside of their oversight responsibilities.
“Although we are prepared to continue negotiations in good faith, the Committee seeks unilateral concessions without any offer of accommodation on its part, and then complains that the White House has refused to simply turn over everything the Committee inappopriately seeks,” Cipollone wrote on March 4.
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